The State of Indiana filed a delinquency petition against a Greencastle Middle School student who had posted derogatory and "vulgar" criticism of the school's anti-body-piercing policy on the social networking site MySpace. The student, referred to in court documents as A.B., critized administrators and created a publicly accessible group entitled "Fuck Mr. Gobert and GC Schools." The state's claims included harassment and identity deception, the latter arising from A.B.'s creation of a fake MySpace account for Gobert, the principal of Greencastle Middle School.

On June 27, 2006, the juvenile court declared A.B. a "delinquent child" and placed her on nine months probation. The court found that A.B.'s MySpace postings, if committed by an adult, would constitute the criminal offense of harassment. A.B. appealed, and the Court of Appeals of Indiana reversed the juvenile court's decision. The appeals court concluded that A.B.'s postings were political speech protected by the Indiana Constitution and that her conviction for harassment thus contravened her right to speak.

On May 13, 2008, the Indiana Supreme Court declined to adopt the appeals court's rationale and instead reversed the juvenile court on another ground. The court ruled that the dilenquency finding could not stand because the state had failed to prove the statutory elements of criminal harasssment. Specifically, the court determined that the state had not shown beyond a reasonable doubt that A.B. posted with the intent "to harass, annoy, or alarm" Gobert with "no intent of legitimate communication." It found that certain comments were not actionable because A.B. had posted them on her personal MySpace page, to which Gobert did not have access. With regard to other comments on the pubicly accessible group page, the court held that she had posted the comments as a legitimate expression of her anger and criticism of Gobert and the school, rather than with an intent to harass, annoy, or alarm.

BoroughVENT.com, an online forum to discuss the Borough of Gettysburg, PA and surrounding region, and one of its adminstrators, Debra Golden, were the recipients of a complaint filed with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission. The complaint, brought by two Maryland residents, alleges that the administrators and users of the site posted comments that berated, insulted, demeaned, and intimidated them in violation of the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act (PHRA).

More specifically, the complaint alleges that "Respondent used unreasonable profanity in verbal assaults against Complainants" and that "Respondent referred to Complainant Phillips in sexual, scatological, sexist and disability-bigoted language" in violation of sections 5(d) and (e) of the PHRA.

Statements quoted in the complaint include the following: "She and her husband are no more than extortionists and terrorists"; "Beware shop owners, the Bitch on Wheels ... who sues people to have handicap ramps, has hit three stores today... This woman's extortion ends NOW!"; "I think we should have posters in all of the business downtown with her photo explaining what she is doing"; and "Speaking of head-hunting, that's what I want from this couple: their head (figuratively, of course)."

The United States government sought an injunction requiring Robert Schulz and his nonprofit organizations dedicated to "'institutionalizing' citizen vigilance and governmental accountability" to remove information promoting the non-payment of income taxes from the organizations' websites www.givemeliberty.org, www.wethepeoplecongress.org, and www.wethepeoplefoundation.org.

The websites provided information suggesting that the federal income tax is voluntary, that the Sixteenth Amendment was not properly ratified, and that citizens should choose not to pay taxes. The websites provided, among other things, a set of materials called a "Tax Termination Package" (offered for free but with a suggested donation) that provided step-by-step instructions on how to avoid paying taxes.

The United States sued Schulz and the organizations, alleging that their behavior breached the Internal Revenue Code (IRC). Specifically, the U.S. alleged that defendants made false or fraudulent statements regarding tax benefits in connection with the sale of a plan or arrangement in violation of 26 USC § 6700, and knowingly prepared a document which would result in understatement of another person's tax liability in violation of IRC § 6701. The U.S. relied on the court's power to grant an injunction under IRC § 7408 to restrain behavior that breaches the above provisions.

Defendants claimed that the publication was protected by the First Amendment. They also claimed that the government had failed to show how the publications breached the tests set out in the cited provisions of the IRC.

On August 9, 2007, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York granted the government's motion for summary judgment, accepting that information helping people to evade income tax did not merit First Amendment protection. The court issued an injunction ordering defendants to remove "all tax-fraud scheme promotional materials, false commercial speech concerning the internal revenue laws, and speech likely to incite others imminently to violate the internal revenue laws” from their websites. The judge did not call for the websites to be taken off the Internet.

The injunction also required defendants to reveal the names, e-mail addresses, social security numbers, and other personal information of people who obtained their information packs to the Internal Revenue Service . On the defendants' motion, the court later stayed this part of the injunction pending appeal to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

On February 22, 2008, the Second Circuit affirmed the District Court's decision and ordered defendants to provide the requested information about the individuals who received the tax packets.

James Buss, a high school teacher in Wisconsin, anonymously posted a comment on the Boots and Sabers blog under the name "Observer." In the comment, Buss stated that high teacher salaries made him sick and appeared to praise the Columbine High School shooters, stating, "They knew how to deal with the overpaid teacher union thugs. One shot at a time!" Because Buss is a former president of the teacher's union, in hindsight there is good reason to believe that the comment was tongue-in-cheek and intended to ridicule the conservative point of view on teacher salaries.

School officials viewed the anonymous comment as a threat and notified the police. The police traced the comment back to Buss and arrested him. He spent an hour in prison and was released on $350 bail. The school district also suspended him from his teaching job. The local district attorney considered charging Buss with disorderly conduct and unlawful use of computerized communications systems under Wisconsin law. The district attorney ultimately determined, however, that Buss's comment was protected speech under the U.S. and Wisconsin constitutions because it did did not incite imminent lawless action.

Mary Jean is the operator of Conte2006.com, which describes itself as being "designed for the sole purpose of stopping the re-election of [Worchester, MA] District Attorney John J. Conte." Jean posted a video to the site that showed state police engaging in a warrantless and possibly unconstitutional search of Paul Pechonis' home. The police depicted in the video allegedly were from a unit that reported to Conte and acted under his supervision. The video was recorded by Pechonis' child-security system (or "nanny cam"), and Pechonis himself gave the video to Jean.

On Feb. 14, 2006, the Massuchetts state police sent a cease-and-desist letter demanding that Jean remove the video within 24 hours or face criminal action. The letter cited a Massachusetts law regarding unauthorized recording and wiretapping as the basis for the takedown request (the police later clarified by stating that only the audio portion of the recording was at issue). Rather than removing the video, Jean filed a lawsuit in federal court requesting an injunction to prevent the Massachusetts police from pursuing legal action. The complaint named the state police, Massachusetts State Police superintendent Thomas G. Robbins, and Massachusetts attorney general Thomas Reilly as defendants.

Jean's complaint sought both an immediate temporary restraining order and a permant injunction that would prevent the police from taking action against her related to the video. The court granted the restraining order on the day the complaint was filed.

The district court ultimately granted the injunction as well. The court assumed for the sake of argument that Jean had reason to know that the recording might have been illegal when she posted it. Finding a public interest in Jean's publication of the information contained in the video, the court decided that the police's duty to restrain illegal recording could not counterbalance Jean's free speech rights. Key to this decision was the fact that Jean did not engage in recording herself, and thus punishing her would not serve the same deterrence goals as would punishing the recorder.

On appeal, the First Circuit upheld the injunction, echoing the lower court's comments regarding the balancing of free speech versus the police's law-enforcing goals.